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SanDisk Announces Temporary Reduction in Fab Production

^{Published on 2008-12-15 20:34:07 - Market Wire}
 

MILPITAS, Calif.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today announced temporary cuts to its Flash wafer production in its joint-venture manufacturing facilities in Yokkaichi, Japan. Production in Fab 3 and Fab 4 will be temporarily halted from December 31 to January 12. Following this shut-down, joint venture production will resume at approximately 70 percent of current capacity. The duration and extent of this reduction in fab output will depend upon market conditions. These steps will result in higher wafer cost due to underutilization of capacity; however, they are expected to better align SanDisk's captive output in 2009 with the projected demand in the current global economic slowdown.

SanDisk also indicated that it is continuing to work with Toshiba on definitive agreements to restructure the manufacturing joint ventures and expects to sign these agreements in the first quarter of calendar year 2009. A non-binding memorandum of understanding regarding selling a portion of the capacity from the joint ventures to Toshiba was originally announced on October 20, 2008.

SanDisk will provide additional details on these capacity actions when it holds its fourth quarter 2008 earnings results conference call.

About SanDisk

SanDisk Corporation, the inventor and world's largest supplier of flash storage cards, is a global leader in flash memory – from research, manufacturing and product design to consumer branding and retail distribution. SanDisk's product portfolio includes flash memory cards for mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders; digital audio/video players; USB flash drives for consumers and the enterprise; embedded memory for mobile devices; and solid state drives for computers. [ SanDisk ] is a Silicon Valley-based S&P 500 company, with more than half its sales outside the United States.

SanDisk's web site/home page address: [ http://www.sandisk.com ]

SanDisk's product and executive images can be downloaded from [ http://www.sandisk.com/corporate/mediakit/ ]

SanDisk, the SanDisk logo and Cruzer Enterprise are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the U.S. and other countries. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s).

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including market demand; our output reduction measures; and the restructuring of our manufacturing joint ventures that are based on our current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Risks that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate include among others: demand for our products may grow more slowly than our expectations; unintended effects of our output reduction measures or the failure to fully implement the output reduction measures; the failure to execute definitive agreements related to the restructuring of our manufacturing joint ventures on the terms set forth in the MOU announced on October 20, 2008, or at all; and the other risks detailed from time-to-time under the caption "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, our annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We do not intend to update the information contained in this press release.